The invention pertains to digital data processing and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for identifying subsets of related data in a data set. The invention has application, for example, in enterprise business visibility and insight using real-time reporting tools.
It is not uncommon for a single company to have several database systems—separate systems not interfaced—to track internal and external planning and transaction data. Such systems might have been developed at different times throughout the history of the company and are therefore of differing generations of computer technology. For example, a marketing database system tracking customers may be ten years old, while an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system tracking inventory might be two or three years old. Integration between these systems is difficult at best, consuming specialized programming skill and constant maintenance expenses.
A major impediment to enterprise business visibility is the consolidation of these disparate legacy databases with one another and with newer databases. For instance, inventory on-hand data gleaned from a legacy ERP system may be difficult to combine with customer order data gleaned from web servers that support e-commerce (and other web-based) transactions. This is not to mention difficulties, for example, in consolidating resource scheduling data from the ERP system with the forecasting data from the marketing database system.
Even where data from disparate databases can be consolidated, e.g., through data mining, directed queries, brute-force conversion and combination, or otherwise, it may be difficult (if not impossible) to use. For example, the manager of a corporate marketing campaign may be wholly unable to identify relevant customers from a listing of tens, hundreds or even thousands of pages of consolidated corporate ERP, e-commerce, marketing and other data.
An object of this invention is to provide improved methods and apparatus for digital data processing and, more particularly, for identifying subsets of related data in a data set.
A related object is to provide such methods and apparatus as facilitate enterprise business visibility and insight.
A further object is to provide such methods and apparatus as can rapidly identify subsets of related data in a data set, e.g., in response to user directives or otherwise.
A further object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as can be readily and inexpensively implemented.